United Kingdom
25 years experience in TV, art gallery curation, management, R&D, web editing, copywriting, design / culture journalism, teaching and strategy with clients in the UK, Europe and USA - This is an archive of some of my work
*Not everything I've ever done is still online / in existance. Get in touch at my website if you'd like more information
Email me on [email protected]
Grafik.net
From Weird Al to rebranding culture, Brooklyn-based Other Means proves that humour, subversion and straight-up smart ideas are alive and kicking in graphic design. Robert Urquhart introduces the band... Words by Robert Urquhart Just over the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan sits the studio of Other Means, the design studio formed two years ago by a supergroup meeting of Gary Fogelson, Phil Lubliner, Ryan Waller and Vance Wellenstein.
Robert Urquhart heads in search of a self-styled American art legend and discovers that, somewhere on the trip, the 'peace and love' hippy became a living brand with his work splashed across Boeing jets and luxury liners. Words by Robert Urquhart Sometimes when you do a job you walk away, and for whatever reason, you end up feeling empty inside.
The Creators Project / VICE.com
"Dream a Little Crazy" is the new single from harmonious piece of pop with jagged rabble rousing intonation, reminiscent of Joe Strummer with a dash of brass. The video for the single finds lead singer Cameron Bird in The Biological Bakery, a DIY bio-fabrication laboratory accompanied by cloned assistants conducting a series of experiments, mass producing living archives of himself.
Working with found and retrieved digital images from the bins of private and public computers--downloaded from the internet or sought out from the security firms entrusted with CCTV (Closed circuit television) footage-- Fabienne Hess is a digital image panhandler.
Alexander Grünsteidl, director of user experience at Method, London and owner of maverick digital think tank, Digital Wellbeing Labs, is a man on a mission. Passionate music lover and vastly knowledgeable in the power of a seamless digital and physical hybrid world, Grünsteidl recently brought his experience to bear in order to rethink the way we interact with our nightlife.
Image by Barnie Page. PhoneArts.Net is an online collaborator network of likeminded creators who use mobile apps to update the way we see sketchbook culture. Two years in and nearly 300,000 Tumblr followers later, Phone Arts are staking their internet claim as an international visual punk supergroup that hangs out on their cell phones-no matter what their detractors may say.
Frieze Art Fair, London, Oct. 2013 Californian-born Petra Cortright is becoming increasingly known in the art world for her webcam video performance work and digital paintings. Having developed a financial system of art worth based on YouTube hits by making haunting short films, she's now throwing-up seeing her own work on TV...
"I've kept it simple in that every release is represented by one solar flare." I'm talking to Peter Crnokrak, one time Postdoctoral Fellow in quantitative genetics at the University of Toronto, now artist and designer under the name of The Luxury of Protest, a London-based design practice, about his most recent piece, entitled UR.
Siggi Eggertsson is considered a design hero in his home country of Iceland. The elusive artist has won numerous prestigious awards, including the Art Directors Club Europe Gold for Illustration in 2012, and worked on a multitude of high-profile projects.
"It shook a lot of people up, it's just exciting. I had a small thrill in my living room experiencing it all." Music video director Neil Krug is talking about the release of Tomorrow's Harvest, the much anticipated album by Boards of Canada.
Frieze Art Fair, London, October 2013 This time last year artist, photographer, and experimental geographer Trevor Paglen launched a small, gold-plated disc into space with the help of New York-based public arts body Creative Time, and the communications satellite EchoStar XVI.
It's difficult not to like Sam Bompas & Harry Parr. As a studio they manage to encompass all that is delightfully eccentric and sophisticated about the English. Even the name Bompas sounds like a klutzy wordplay on pompous (and yes, it is his real surname).
Huffington Post
Watching the news from CERN via Twitter yesterday made for interesting viewing as one by one whispers of a design faux-pas echoed round the room and rash of Comic Sans hashtags broke out.
Tech City, a recent stamp of approval from Whitehall of the Old Street area of London, being a creative 'hub' - how I hate that word, appears to be a top-heavy civil service exercise in cool, band wagon jumping after the band has already played venture. We need to reach out further.
Grafik Magazine
Grafik is an independently published, monthly graphic design magazine serving the international design community. Aiming to produce unbeatable coverage of groundbreaking new design, it showcases the cream of both cutting edge and commercial graphic design, providing a platform for photography, art, typography, illustration, new media, fashion, technology and advertising.
Etapes International
Entièrement consacré à la typographie, le numéro 203 d'étapes interroge l'évolution et la création de caractères, du Garamond aux fonderies françaises contemporaines, tout en regardant les démarches singulières de la blogueuse américaine Jessica Hische ou de l'anglaise Morag Myerscough.
Mix Magazine
Stylus
Freelance Interviews / Digital Copywriting / Production / Other
'Search/Find/Like/Share - Perspectives in visual storytelling' is available for European exhibition spaces. Read all about this exhibition and the requirements.
After the success of our Skype Laughter Chain campaign, we had days of raw footage of people laughing at our video. We cut together the best of them and performed a quiet release. Approx. 400,000 views to date.
Rheum: A publication by foundfootage.be foundfootage.be is an online platform on which different types of 'found' material are brought together. This material can be contributed by anyone, by artists but also from everyday sources. On our website we use subjective selection criteria. Rheum is an experiment towards a possible vision on this practice.
A short bite of GDFB2012. 5 days of exhibitions, workshops, lectures and fun captured in a 9 minute video. Video and sound design by Foss Collective Graphic design by Rob van Hoesel Leader animation by Taco Potma/Circus Family Leader music by Jesse Koolhaas
Personal Blog
and much more to do with the hyper-stimulated The cult renaissance in 1990s style visuals / fashion has less to do with ironic retro references tumblr generation and the endlessly scrolling web page. This fresh generation of creative curators are finding inspiration in a decade that saw the end of a human paced era and the beginning of a digitally leaping one.
Glitch is honest. It's raw. It's the visual shorthand for the digital underground. Menacing, uncomfortable and oddly macho-geek, It's also beautifully inconsistent and a perfect foil for streamlined digital media culture. Fashion re-appropriates, design manipulates and art creates. This is all part of the constant remixing of culture, perfect for the feedback loop of glitch.
Press
Two years from launch, "Plebsville" has survived the flood of online social-networking. Based on the premise of Lee McCormack's book, "Designers are Wankers", the site offers a mix of web 2.0 features for design graduates; you can upload and share your portfolio of work, contact and message other Plebs and write blog entries on your profile.